Back!

I've been away for ages due to holidays, work and now now home internet!! Once normal service is resumed i'll be able to update where I am properly. I now have a 20 man regiment of Confederate infantry done and looking good. I've said before that despite the cheapness of the figures they actually turned out ok.

I've built up my box of cavalry and they'll be my next painting job. Currently on my workbench I have the following to get done:

Wild west buildings - I've got about 4 scratch built buildings to finish off. It's my first attempt at this so results are mixed!

Wild west figures - 4 or 5 citizens to fill out the town (may need to get some more)

ECW cavalry - 2 boxes of Warlord Games ECW cavalry to build and paint although having now played a few games of pike and shotte, I already have more than enough so these boys can wait

WW2 US jeep - I picked up a US jeep on holiday for next to nothing, it's a die cast model so just needs some weathering. I also have 15 US infantry to build and paint for Bolt Action but I've got more than a 500 point army done already anyway so no rush

Dungeons and Dragons - I picked up a vintage D&D box set game at a boot fair recently that included some Ral Partha metal figs. they look cool so I thought I'd paint them up for a laugh

Templar/feudal Knights - I bought these on Ebay ages ago and have done nothing with them, they've been painted already but look poo so I'm going to redo them. I don't know what for at the mo' we'll see.

Hedges - Hedges, hedges and more hedges!!! I now have more hedges than I will ever need :-)

Like I said, once the internet is back at home I'll post some pics and a proper update.

Confederate ACW army progress

I've been working away a lot the last couple of weeks so haven't made much progress. I've managed to get some more of the soft plastic figs painted though. I've also tried out a couple of highlighting techniques for fun.

I tried to do all the variants of the figs (not many!) . All the flag holders are holding those furled up flags so I may get some separate flag dudes as it would be nice to have some unfurled flags on show. I just painted it red and added a darker red wash. Does anybody know of any tutorials on painting furled flags??

I tried some different highlighting techniques. The first fig (far left) is done my normal way - Base colours then washed in GW Agrax eartshade. The next guy has been dry brushed in grey (yes I know it looks blue!) and for the guy on the right I just highlighted some of the raised grey areas. I think I may do more with the highlighted areas. I don't really like the dry brushed guy.

I'm taking the rest of my first 20 man regiment on holiday so i'll get them finished and see how they look together. After that I'm going to do some cavalry.

New project ACW armies

Now the Bolt Action army is done, I'm moving onto the next project. I've wanted to do an American Civil war army for ages now and now is the time to start.

At Salute earlier in the year I picked up some cheap ACW infantry. I managed to get 120 plastic figures for about £20. They're not great quality and were a mixture of Confederate and Union soldiers. I decided to use these as the base for my confederate army as there wasn't much variation in the figures so mixing the 2 will look better on the bases.

Last night I painted up 2 figures to see how they'd look.

I'm pleased. They look a lot better than I was expecting as they look pretty poo out of the bag. Here are a couple of pictures that show the raw figs, primed and fully painted.

They're made of a soft kind of plastic but they painted up fine and will look good when based up.

US Bolt Action army complete.....for now

After a short break due to work I got my Bolt Action army finished last night. All ready to go now. It's roughly the same size as the 500 point army you can buy so I presume it's roughly around there. The make up is as follows:

2 x  10 man squads of NCO, BAR and 8 riflemen
2 x Bazooka teams
1 x Sniper teams
1 x HQ - Lieutenant and rifleman
1 x 30. cal team
1 x Sherman
1 x M3A1 Halftrack

I'm pretty pleased, it's a good enough base army to get going. I've already got my eye on additions though also I may start a Waffen SS army but it'll do for now. I also still have about another 15 guys I can make with the left over sprues but they can wait.

Apologies for the crappy pictures but I took the them on my phone.

I converted the driver of the halftrack into a gunner as I didn't see the point putting a figure in there you wouldn't see!

I tried out some new weathering techniques on the Sherman. It looks ok I think, I need to learn how to do some good looking mud but all in all not bad.

I just realised I didn't lay out the 30 cal team!! I'll do separate picture for them.

Here are the 2 medics I made out of the left overs

 Onto the next project.

Hedges, lots of hedges and a Sherman!

As I mentioned last time, I found a guide on making hedges and it looked pretty easy so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Here's the guide to the page DIY Hedges I went to Hobbycraft and picked up a glue gun and the fat lolly sticks. The pan scourers I got in a £1 shop. All in all about £10 outlay for what will end up being around 80 pieces of hedges (if I can be arsed making that much!).

The pictures are pretty comprehensive on the original site so here are just a couple. I don't have any clamps so I just put the glued scourers under a heavy book for a couple of minutes. Then stuck them onto the lolly sticks.

After that, I sprayed them black, painted the base green and covered them with the flock. Hey presto!

My very first attempt at a tree! Not too bad.

Here's sarge going down a hedged lane with the Half track

I'm pretty pleased overall. I'd like to try some finer flock as the stuff I'm using is a bit thick but it's all trial and error.

On another note, I scored a 1/50 scale Sherman on Ebay for only a few quid. It needs some weathering but it looks great. It's made by Solido.

Warlord Games M3A1 Half-Track Part 2

I've been making good progress this week. I've been concentrating on my US army for Bolt Action, getting the rest of the figs done and painting the half track. I've tried some new weathering techniques on this, I've added rusty spots  and used different washes with some dry bushing as well.

I'm pleased with the result so far but I want to add some mud onto it somehow into the tracks and around the arches. It's still a work in progress as I need to finish the weathering, add the front gun and the driver.

In the background is some scenery I've been making. I found a great page on how to create hedges with pan scourers so tried it out today. They turned out great. I'll take some pics and put it in a separate post.

Warlord Games M3A1 Half-Track

I've got a new project on the work bench. It's a half track for my Bolt Action US infantry. I've still got some more infantry to do to complete my small army but I'm nearly there. I plan to do this half track and then a tank of some sort. I've built up the Half-track and base painted it. It's quite a nice little model. I have absolutely no idea how useful it'll be but it looks cool. I haven't fitted the front gun yet as I'm deciding whether or not to put a guy in there firing it.

Warlord Games Pike and Shotte English Civil War Infantry

Here are a few shots of my ECW army. I bought the basic starter army box and expanded it with some extra infantry, cavalry and artillery. Here are some of the pike and shotte figs.

The flag here is one of the ones from the infantry box. I think they look quite good. I've based all my guys on 40x40mm bases which is a bit of a squeeze at times.

I've got a sneaky figure from another range here. The cavalry guy is a fig I got from Ebay. He may be Foundry, I'm not sure though.

How to make a stone wall with foam

This is great, I found this on a blog I follow on Tumblr. It's called The Stonecuttersguild and can be found here He has makes some lovely scenery and posts some great pictures of interesting places. Anyway, he posted a tutorial on how to make stone walls using polystyrene. Really easy. I need to get making some walls for Pike and Shottte and Bolt Action. Here's the video:

Painting US Infantry Part 3

So last night I got some bases done on these guys. I'm not that happy with the basing to be honest but it's quick and easy to do and looks ok. I simply paint the bases green then cover them PVA, chuck on some gravel and add some grass. I bought some tufts of grass from Games Workshop a while ago and have never used them so tried them out on these men. Let me know what you think.

I've got some decals for badges from Warlord Games so will put those on shortly.

I painted the teeth on a couple of the guys that had open mouths for a change.

I'm now using my wife's fancy camera to take the pictures. The trouble is I don't really know what I'm doing so bear with me. They will get better.

Painting US Infantry Part 2

So we've got our figures primed and we've also painted the base colours for skin, jackets and helmets. Next step is to paint on all the rest of the base colours. For these guys, dark brown for wood and boots, light green for the back pack and belts and tan for the socks (can't remember what those things are called as I type this).

Here are two of my infantry guys

After that, simply dry brush any areas I want to highlight. In this case I dry brushed the jackets and helmets in the same paint I used for the back packs. Finally I apply a wash over the entire figure using Citadel's Agrax Eartshade which is labelled as a shade. I used to use Army Painter Quickshade dip but the Agrax Earthshade is quicker to use and less messy. I'll post up some pictures of my ECW army which were pretty much all done using the Army Painter dip.

I think the wash dirties them up, gives you some shadowing and dulls the base colours. I'm really happy with the finish, good enough for the game table. I've tried painting eyes and teeth but I don't think it's worth the effort, once they're on the table you don't see them.

Here are some finished figures

Ready for war! Using this process I can usually get about 7-10 guys painted in an evening. Just got the basing to do so I'll post up some more pictures of them with bases although I'm rubbish at doing bases. If anyone's got and tips I'm all ears.

Painting US Infantry Part 1

Hi there, here is the first part showing how I paint my miniatures. I am by no means a great or even good painter. As I've mentioned before my main aim is to get miniatures on the game table as quick as possible with minimum effort. I enjoy playing the games first and foremost and whilst I do enjoy the painting/building side of it a lot, painting lots of minis can be a thankless task at times.

Just a word on colouring and livery. I know a lot of people take the historical accuracy side of gaming very seriously. I don't, at all (as I've said before). It doesn't interest me in the slightest. As long as it looks like what I'm going for I'm happy.

Ok, here we go. I start off by priming the figures, usually in black but it really depends what figures I'm painting. For my ECW New model army I primed them all in red to save me painting the jackets and I'm doing my confederates in grey primer for the same reason. After the primer coat depending on the figures and if I can be arsed I sometimes dry brush them in white to pick out the features as it makes it easier to see sometimes. In this case I didn't. The first colour coat is skin so for these guys, hands and face. You'll notice I'm not overly bothered about neatness at this stage. The flesh colour here is Games Workshop Elf flesh. It's a bit bright but we can dull it down later.

After that it's jackets and helmets. I'm using Humbrol olive colour for this. All my paints are acrylics by the way.

That's it for part 1. In part 2 we'll get all the base colours done. I paint skin, jackets, backpacks/belts, trousers, guns and boots and finally metal in that order. Ta ta for now.

Warlord Games US Infantry

Here are a couple of shots of the US Infantry guys I've finished (apart from the bases). I'm going to do a post detailing the painting process but for now this is the end result. Let me know what you think.

Basic Impetus and update

Some new pictures for you while I decide what to do next. I'm currently working on a box of Warlord Games US infantry. I've already painted 14 of them and have 6 left that are built and primed so for my next post I'll do an overview of my painting process with some decent pictures. In the meantime....

Here are a couple of shots from a test game of Basic Impetus. We were using the army lists for War of the roses armies. The game mechanics seemed ok, I think we need to try it with a bit more scenery though to make it less of a "smash into each other" affair. Not bad for a first effort though. For the history buffs, I'm sorry. As the blog progresses you'll see I don't go in for completely historically accurate uniforms, banners, flags etc. That level of detail just doesn't interest me.

For my War of the Roses Lancastrian army I just painted the figs in colours I had and looked nice. For the flags I bought a pack of Battle of Barnet flags at the Salute show in London and used whichever took my fancy.

Welcome

As this is the first post on here there's nobody actually reading this! This blog is hopefully going to add a bit of insight into getting armies on the table including scenery for not massive outlays of either time or money.

I'm not the most patient of people and the building and painting of figures and scenery is not for me the best part of the hobby, it's the games themselves. Sure, the satisfaction of finishing some figures is great but if it's between speed painting twenty figs in one sitting or getting one competition winner done, I'll take the former every time. My main goal when painting up armies is speed. At the end of the day, if they look good on the table, that's good enough for me. I'll be posting up lots of pictures over the coming weeks showing results I get. I'm not a great painter and never will be but I'm happy with the results and if others get something out of it, great.

For starters, here are a couple of shots I've quickly found...

First up, Celts. I bought these to try out Saga rules but haven't yet gotten round to playing it. In the background are some cowboys for Dead Man's Hand and in the rear some Perry plastic archers for Basic Impetus.

Next up, the Dead Man's Hand cowboys before washing and basing. These figures were from Dixon Miniatures.

Oliver Cromwell leading the troops into battle. Sadly this was just before he screwed up his order causing a blunder and taking his troops off the table!

Finally a shot from our recent Pike and Shotte battle. Troops in action. Most of the figs are from the Warlord Games Pike and Shotte series

That's it for now. Next time I'll do some better close ups of some figs and a run down of my process for painting. Cheers